Can aikido benefit from Chinese art?
My take is no. My own understanding is that Chinese art are too complicated and flowery in contrast to aikido. I see aikido movement as very much derived from Kenjutsu; its movement is precise, minimalist and economical. Ever see how a Chinese jian or dao performer do their routine? It is so different from a kenjutsu practitioner isn't it. So my take is that.... NO, they are too different in philosophy, style, skill set and mentality to be of mutually beneficial. I would view them separately as two distinct art.

They are but they aren't

Ever seen Hsing-i/Xin-i or other related fist styles performed?
I think you'll find most good CMA is minamalist in training
Anything else is simply an expression of the "core concepts" to make things more interesting for the outsider, or just confuse them(Plenty of that in the JMA & CMA world).

"they are too different in philosophy, style, skill set and mentality to be of mutually beneficial"

Dunno about that. For those interested I suggest reading the blog by Ellis on aikidojournal.com
Ueshiba's "flip" in thinking which he alludes to in his esoteric babblings is pretttty similar in essence to what the old school chinese teachers talk about.
Come to think of it, both sides of the fence get overtly verbose and "flowery" when describing the same stuff

Another thing to think about, we only have two arms and two legs, a head and maybe sometimes a brain.
There's only a limited number of ways you can use the body effeciently, and the philosophies that accompany this "use" of the body are only so many. ( I think)